Orders of the Day — Scotland and Wales Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 14 December 1976.

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Photo of Mr George Reid Mr George Reid , Stirlingshire East and Clackmannan 12:00, 14 December 1976

No, I have given way several times.

What is taking place, as the Leader of the Conservative Opposition said yesterday, is that we have come to the end of the Empire and the United Kingdom is currently in a state of economic decline. No one here would deny that. I may be making a point against myself, but we Scots had a privileged position in the days of Imperial grandeur. We were both Scots and British. We ran the docks in Hong Kong, the judicial system in the Punjab and held Burns suppers in temperatures of 102 degrees in India. Those days are gone and those options are no longer open to us. We stay at home. The young Scots in Scotland today, looking at the obvious degradation and neglect, are not prepared to tolerate these conditions. They are back in our own country for keeps and wish to do something about the situation—usually by joining the SNP.

The third determinant is the EEC referendum. I agree with the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) that that was a big constitutional divide in British history. For the English it marked the final, formal abdication of sovereignty. For Scotland it marked a simultaneous reawakening of a future rôleas a small North European Country. The arguments deployed by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr Powell) and the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) against the Common Market also apply with equal logic to arguments about Scottish—English relationships.

Devolution is far too big a matter for the United Kingdom. One must look at the European connection. It is interesting that Lord Kilbrandon, whose report is the basis of so much of our discussion, is on record now as saying I see a new relationship emerging between Brussels and Edinburgh with the London link gradually fading away. That is a future pattern for the development of our country—an independent Scotland as an equal partner—within the European Communities.

The Prime Minister yesterday dealt with the small national units in Europe—the desires of the Alsatians, Bretons, Catalonians and the Scots. There is a difference in kind and in degree, however. Scotland has a degree of muscle equalled only by Catalonia. We have our oil and fish, and we have our strategic waters, which are the forward development area of the Soviet Murmansk fleet. That gives us a strong bargaining position.

The SNP is the fastest-growing party in Europe, but we must remember that nationalism has been around for a long time.